


Left to the Cold

by Maeve_of_Winter



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Hurt Spencer Reid, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-05-25 20:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6208978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeve_of_Winter/pseuds/Maeve_of_Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer Reid is struggling after his torture at the hands of Tobias Hankel. Can the BAU help him recover? Is he willing to let them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for implied childhood sexual abuse, mentions of canonical torture, mentions of canonical drug use, and profanity.

The house is silent for the first time in weeks. Though Spencer knows he should be relieved, grateful that Mom and Dad have finally stopped yelling at each other, he's fearful of the sudden quiet. Dread has an icy grip on his lungs, making anything more than shallow breathing impossible, and his stomach churns as if he's going to be sick.

Making as little noise as possible, Spencer unlocks his bedroom door and creeps into the hallway. There's no sign of anyone else, and the door to Mom and Dad's room remains tightly closed from when Mom slammed it shut four hours, three minutes, and fifty-six seconds ago. Still, Spencer keeps his footsteps soft and his mind alert as he ventures down the stairs. He knows it's safer for him to stay in his room with the door locked, but he has a horrible feeling that something is wrong.

To put his mind at ease, he is compelled to check that everything is actually normal. Dad isn't anywhere to be found in the downstairs, and Spencer decides to check the garage. It's empty, and the door is open, revealing his father's car, the trunk open, parked in the driveway.

Warily scanning the area, Spencer slowly walks forward, circling around the car. Steeling himself, he surges forward and whips around the car's side, forcing himself to look into the trunk.

Boxes.

Cardboard boxes, filling the trunk near to capacity. Half of Spencer is relieved, half of him remains suspicious.

Approaching footsteps startle him, and Spencer nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Dad approaching. Dad walks toward him, another carton in his arms, and that's when Spencer's mind makes the connection. Dad moves past him to add this box to the pile, and Spencer cringes away from him, the air catching in his lungs as their bodies come within a breath of touching each other. Panic starts to flood his veins and tears rush to his eyes. The sun is bright in the sky, and cars glide through the streets of their neighborhood, but Spencer suddenly feels very vulnerable. A choked sob wrenches its way out of Spencer's throat, and Dad looks at him directly for the first time as he pushes the trunk shut. He reaches out a hand, but Spencer flinches away.

_He doesn't like it when Daddy touches him._

"Please," Spencer gasps out, warm tears trailing down his face, but even he himself is not certain what he's asking.

There's a sigh of impatience, exasperation, and then Dad is turning, walking, opening the driver's door.

Spencer unconsciously backs onto the grass where the car wouldn't be able to hit him.

Dad slides in the seat, turns the ignition, and in seconds, has pulled his car out of the driveway. Time seems to become shorter and shorter as his car moves further and further away, as Spencer cries tears borne from both devastation and relief.

A week later, not even a month into his first year of high school, Harper Hillman lures him out to the football field, under the guise that Alexa Lisbon wants to talk to him. And Spencer is stupid to believe it, stupid to trust her. But he aches to believe there's a chance Alexa might really want to talk, that there's a chance he could be happy, could have friends.

He is wrong.

He is so very wrong. And as the football players tear off his clothes, the memories of his father coming into his room at night rush to the forefront of his mind. Every of moment of every previous instance replays in perfect detail in his mind as hands pull at him roughly, as knots tighten, cutting into his wrists.

In his naiveté, Spencer thinks this humiliation, this violation, is the worst he will ever have to face.

When Hankel comes along, he's proven wrong on that, too.

The worst part isn't his torture itself- it's the broadcast of his suffering to his team. It's humiliating for them to see him helpless. He might as well be that scared ten-year-old tied to the goalpost again. Maybe they don't know it, but he's worked hard to prove himself to them, to show them that he's worth keeping around. When he's rattling off statistics and facts, he knows he's being a showoff and an annoyance. But he wants to demonstrate to them that he's _worthwhile_ , even if only for his brain.

He sits in the chair, his hands useless. At this point he's too tired and drained to put up much of a fight anymore.

The red light of the camera glares at him accusingly.

Once, in a desperate attempt to be normal, Spencer let the team think that he couldn't pick a lock. Out of despair to appear less pathetic, less like the freak everyone wanted to stuff into lockers and closets. For once in his life, not have the stigma of being an outsider, of being _different_.

The red light bores into him, and Spencer hopelessly wishes he could make himself disappear.

For a while after Hankel, everyone is overly nice around him. They're being cautious; they don't want to set him off. And yet, while everyone takes care to be extra friendly to him, no one ever offers to help him. To talk to him, to comfort him.

Due to procedure, he has weekly appointments with a Bureau shrink. Spencer supposes that's where he's intended to open up, to expose his innermost feelings, but he never manages to unlock those parts of himself. He's not comfortable, either, telling a stranger vivid details about his time with Tobias. It seems to intimate, too personal, to ever share.

Besides, there have already been too many voyeurs where his time with Tobias is concerned.

Once, Spencer makes the grave mistake of mentioning his father, and that's all his therapist needs to start badgering Spencer to reconnect with the man. Though he had been considering continuing his sessions after his mandatory duration was completed, Spencer writes off that idea completely when his therapist refuses to let go of the notion of Spencer and his father reuniting.

He has very little time off of work after Tobias. He's released from the hospital on a Thursday, and he's back at work the following Monday. No one seems to think this quick return is at all remarkable; no one suggests he shouldn't be in the field again so soon. Gideon hovers every so often, asking, "How are you?" or "Are you all right?" None of them are sincere questions, because Gideon doesn't truly want an answer. Gideon is only asking because he wants Spencer to affirm that yes, he is all right; regardless of if it is accurate or honest response, such a response is satisfactory for Gideon.

Because if Spencer says yes, Gideon has plausible deniability, can tell himself he made an effort, no matter how minuscule of an effort it was, and can congratulate himself for sparing a few seconds to inquire about a coworker's health.

That is, if Spencer says yes.

Spencer, all too accustomed to telling others what they want to hear, does exactly that. Whatever helps Gideon sleep at night, no matter how deluded and self-enchanted the man may be.

More than ever, it's evident that the only pieces of Spencer that Gideon is concerned with are the pieces that validate Gideon. It's strange to consider that while he was the one who was tortured, who literally died while his teammates were completely incapable of helping him, and who then rescued himself from his torturer, Spencer, in the wake of his own trauma, is the one who needs to reassure and comfort Gideon.

In his lonelier moments, Spencer wishes someone could be there for him, to offer him comfort and security after what he went through with Tobias.


	2. Chapter 2

On his first case back after Tobias, Spencer tries to open up to Derek-- another mistake. At Derek's urging, he hesitantly reveals his state of disquiet about being able to deeply relate to the victims. It takes every iota of confidence and courage Spencer has to speak, to reveal the shattered fragments of himself he's always tried desperately to hide. As long as he can remember, he's always been surrounded by people impatiently watching and waiting and ready to manipulate and mock any sign of weakness he shows. When Spencer finally manages to speak freely to Derek, he's physically shaking due to the emotional toll of admitting the truth.

But Derek opens him up only to shut him down-- or at least, that's the way it feels.

“You use it. Let it make you a better profiler. A better person,” Derek informs him, not even bothering to disguise the inherent insult in his words.

“A better person,” Spencer echoes emptily. Initially, icy numbness washes over him at Derek's words and he feels nothing but calm, a defense mechanism he's developed after spending years around people who only want to hurt him over and over again just to see his pain renewed.

Spencer knows what Derek means by “better.” Someone less broken, become someone less damaged in the way he is.

Three doctorates, a master’s, two BAs, an IQ of 187, and an eidetic memory. Youngest age on record to make FBI agent and the fastest Academy graduate in history.

But that's still not good enough. Spencer is still not good enough. His team wants someone better, or maybe just someone different. They want someone who's not him. They want him to pretend, to put on a mask, so they don't have to waste empathy or sympathy on him for anything he's suffered through.

 _Fuck off_ , Derek might as well have told him. _Stop burdening me with your problems._

He tries not to take his conversation with Derek too personally. At this point in his life, with Spencer being who he is, snide comments, put-downs, and backhanded compliments are regularly expected.

It's just that . . . he'd trusted Derek. To have his back, to care about him, at least as a teammate. Spencer really would have liked to talk to him, though at the same time, he knows it would be unfair to ask Derek to share his struggles.

In a way, Spencer understands why his team wants to pretend his torture at the hands of Charles and Raphael is negligible to the point that it isn't even worth discussing. Watching him in real time team must not have been easy for them-- it's an experience they want to forget, one they're ready to forget. And in their eagerness to wash the past away, they've forgotten that where Spencer was, being the person tortured on screen, wasn't exactly an easy position, either.

Derek's dismissive remarks to him are part of Derek's healing process from the incident. If Derek fools Spencer into thinking what he went through is nothing, then Derek can stop feeling guilty for what happened and fool himself into recovering. Spencer wants Derek and the team to recover, but he wants to recover, too.

Later, when Spencer considers the conversation between Derek and himself, he can’t suppress a rising anger directed towards the other man. Derek kept picking at him, prodding and prying at Spencer’s wounds, insisting that Spencer wasn’t okay no matter the amount of times the latter informed him he was. And when Spencer finally caved and admitted that he was still hurt, Derek did his best to trivialize Spencer’s pain.

Admittedly, it’s partially Spencer’s fault; he should have known from years of experience that when others become concerned with his grievances, it means those individuals see them as weakness and will not hesitate to exploit them against him. This entire time, Derek has been fishing, scrounging for flaws he can use to maneuver Spencer.

Derek is not a schoolyard bully, though; he’s just a face in the crowd who watches, apathy evident, as Spencer falls prey to a tormenter. As is the rest of the team.

Four profilers, Spencer thinks, his conversation with Derek flashing through his mind, as he winds his belt around his arm for the first time.

Four.

And not one of them even realized his first clue. Their minds were occupied with the images of Charles and Raphael beating him, of Tobias injecting him. Too busy watching the show to think about actually helping him.

Besides . . .maybe there's a reason they didn't arrive at the cemetery more quickly.

Maybe to them he wasn't even worth the effort.

He’s been stupid to trust them; to trust anyone. He should know better by now.

The needle sinks into his arm, and Tobias's face flashes into Spencer's mind. Tobias, who found relief through dilaudid and did his best to help Spencer find it, too. But now Tobias is dead. Tobias, one of the few people to ever bother try to help Spencer through his pain-- who made more effort to help him in his suffering than his entire team combined-- was repaid by Spencer killing him. The irony is twistedly humorous-- Spencer has been aching for years for someone to be there for him, to help him, or at least try, and eventually when Tobias became that someone, Spencer unhesitatingly slaughtered him.

A sob, long suppressed, wracks Spencer's frame, and humiliation and guilt war within him for being so weak as to cry. He hates these feelings. He's so sick of feeling rotten, guilty, angry, hurt, lost, afraid, and alone. He hates that he can't confide in anyone, that his team doesn't want to hear it. And because he's Spencer Reid, always too pathetic and too awkward to form meaningful human relationships, he doesn't have anyone else to talk to.

At that moment, Spencer makes himself a deal about the dilaudid. He's use it for now as a coping mechanism, as a way to get through the cases that now unnerve and upset him. He'll still be able to do his job, still be able to help those in need of it. Then, when the moment is right, he'll overdose. Permanently. Because he's not going to be able to pretend to cope forever; sooner rather than later, he'll break apart.

Killing himself will solve that problem, save him the pain of enduring another humiliation of having his pain open and exposed-- put on display-- and the embarrassment of when his team does nothing to even try to help him.


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, he doesn’t overdose. Spencer is too much of a coward to go through with the necessary actions. There's always another case, someone else who needs his help, and the timing is never right—Spencer continually worries about which unlucky person will have the misfortune to find his body.

So he doesn't kill himself, but instead becomes just another addict. Another burden to his team, a further embarrassment. Everyone would have been better off if he'd died. If only he could erase himself fully, completely obliterate all memory of himself from reality, but without hurting anyone in the process.

The team knows he's using. Each one of them. They know he's hurting; that he's hurting himself. Spencer can tell; for years he's been left with no choice but to be hyper vigilant of the individuals surrounding him, as well as their intentions toward him. He can read people and their attitudes toward him a mile away.

He knows the team knows he's using. The team knows he knows they know.

But no one does a thing to help him. They pretend everything's okay, as they've done all along, ever since Tobias.

It hurts. Knowing they've left him on display to show his pain and despair to the world. Knowing he's not worth saving to any of them, not even for his brain. Knowing that they would rather he endanger himself, them, and countless LEOs and victims before reaching out to him. He's that much of an embarrassment; they'd rather he die in the field due to his self-destruction before bothering to help him.

The worst part of him, the darkest, most cynical voice in his head, wonders if they’re enjoying the show. If they took pleasure in watching him suffer through Tobias’s torture, and if they’re taking pleasure in watching him now.

He doesn’t understand why they’re not helping him. He is a risk. He is risk to himself. To the team. To the police and citizens of whatever town they’re in. To the victims of the unsub, if the information from him that the team is using is unreliable.

But neither Hotch nor Gideon say a word. And every member of the team pretends as if they don’t notice a thing.

Spencer can’t wrap his head around their logic. Honestly, it was a case that got him into the disaster with Tobias. And Spencer had to rescue himself, fight through his torture to give Hotch and the team not one, but two clues to find him because they couldn’t manage on their own. As far as apprehending Tobias was concerned, Spencer was forced to kill him because the team still hadn’t arrived. By the time they finally did, Tobias was already dead.

The other members of the BAU hadn’t saved him. They didn’t do a goddamn thing for him. Spencer had saved himself then, and it looked like he would have to save himself now, since the rest of his team couldn’t be bothered.

His substance abuse only lasts two months before it directly impacts his work on a case. And Spencer knows it's irresponsible, but he wants someone to come looking for him, for someone to care.

“I'm struggling,” he tells Gideon when he finally acknowledges that Spencer isn't one hundred percent.  _ Help me. Please, please, help me. _

Gideon promises to see him through it, and Spencer feels an enormous weight lift off of his shoulders. Finally, someone actually  _ wants  _ to help him.

But Gideon virtually ignores him at work the next few days, and any happiness or relief Spencer felt at Gideon's promise gradually drain away.

One day, Spencer returns to his apartment and finds that a handful of pamphlets about substance abuse self-help groups have been stuffed into his satchel when he wasn't aware. His self-confidence ebbing to its lowest point in recent memory, Spencer swallows his hurt and humiliation and glances through them. Any therapy groups that requires a close circle of family and friends are unceremoniously tossed in the trash; he doesn't have either, and it's his own damn fault.

He's an embarrassment. So much of one that his team is too ashamed of him to even acknowledge the extent.

More ashamed of himself than ever, Spencer quits the dilaudid. On his own, naturally, because no one from his team offers to help him. But the situation with his colleagues doesn’t improve.

Gideon leaves. In his place is a letter that easily could serve as a suicide note. It certainly lends itself to that interpretation, and Spencer knows Gideon had to be aware of that.

Gideon addressed the letter to him, and Spencer recognizes guilt trip when he sees one. He raised himself and was surrounded for years by people who wanted the worst for him; he can spot manipulation attempts from miles away.

With no official resignation from Gideon, it's left to Spencer to take the letter to Hotch and the others, to basically admit to the team that he is solely responsible for driving Gideon away. Gideon fully wanted it that way, wanted him to be the bearer of bad news, wanted the team to associate his departure directly with Spencer.

Maybe the letter was disguised with a sorrowful, (overly) paternalistic tone, but the purpose of the letter is not to make Spencer feel less guilty, but in fact, more so. The letter's only reason for existence is to indicate to the rest of the team that he is guilty, to convince them that Gideon would still be here if it weren't for Spencer and his multitude of mistakes. Gideon wrote the letter because he wanted Spencer to suffer, because he wanted to draw attention to all of Spencer's failures.

For a solid month, Spencer spends every night forgoing sleep for pacing throughout his apartment restlessly, his mind replaying his every interaction with Gideon, imaging what he could have done to convince Gideon he wasn't a failure. What he could have done to give him enough reason to stay. For a straight sixty days, Spencer calls Gideon's cell phone every night and leaves a message, pleading with him to let him know if he's all right, just so he can stop panicking each time the phone rings—each instance might be the authorities calling to say they've found Gideon's body.

But if Gideon is alive, he doesn't want Spencer to have that piece of mind. He never returns a single phone call, never does a thing to establish he's still on this earth.

Each morning he wakes, Spencer is overcome with an enormous, aching sense of guilt and grief. For killing Tobias. For driving Gideon away. For committing his mother. For driving his father away. For regretting driving his father away when his father was hurting him like he was.

He wishes he could reach out to his team. Talk to them, be reassured by them. But that’s just a fantasy. They don’t care about him. They would just deliberately embarrass him and try to manipulate him, just as Morgan did after Hankel.

He hurts. Every inch of him, every part of him, just hurts and hurts and hurts more than he ever thought was possible. Pieces of him are disappearing, tearing away, fading away, and the leftover parts don't fit together no matter what the number or method of his attempts, no matter the amount of force he tries to use.

At work Spencer smiles in the right places, talks when it's expected of him. The routine is automatic to him at this point.

Yet when he's asked, “How are you?” at work, he sometimes feels like answering honestly, even though he knows the question is only asked out of politeness. “Sad,” he wants to say, even though just thinking that makes him feel stupid and childish. “Hurt.”

But he can't burden his team in that way. He's done enough to prove himself a screw-up to them.

And the team seems intent on letting him know he’s nothing more than a screw-up to them, too.


End file.
